I'm Political Economy editor at Forbes, editor of RealClearMarkets.com, plus a senior economic advisor to Toreador Research & Trading. I have book on how the economy works, Popular Economics: What LeBron James, the Rolling Stones and Downton Abbey Can Teach You About Economics that is set for release in April of 2015. I have a weekly column on Mondays at Forbes.com.

Suzanne Collins' "The Hunger Games" Illustrates the Horrors of Big Government

It says here that HBO’s The Wire, which ran from 2002-2008, is the greatest television drama of all time. The show, essentially an historical-fiction style documentary on the tragedy that is Baltimore (MD), notably appealed to all sides of the political spectrum.

Liberals of the American variety seemed to like it for revealing how very crushing and insurmountable poverty is, conservatives perhaps liked it for televising the human error frequently behind poverty, not to mention the corruption inside media and government, and then libertarians including this writer surely enjoyed it for laying out the totally ineffective nature of the “war on drugs”, and the sheer incompetence of government.

It’s said about The Hunger Games, Suzanne Collins’ blockbuster novel that will be released in movie form this Friday, that it appeals to a broad demographic ranging from teens to senior citizens. If so, it’s fair to assume that a not insignificant portion of the book’s devotees see a political message within. Cue up the hateful comments, but my libertarian instincts tell me the novel is a boisterous comment about the certain horrors of big government.

To provide background for those who’ve not yet read the book, The Hunger Games takes place in a post-modern North America where society has collapsed thanks to drought, famine and war. The country is Panem, which has a major city called Capitol run by the governing elite. Those in power oversee twelve districts.

Each year at the pleasure of brutal politicians desperate for sadistic entertainment, two representatives from the twelve districts engage in a televised game of survival whereby only one person comes out alive. Though the novel has a variety of characters, most of the story centers on Katniss Everdeen and Peeta Mellark, Hunger Games representatives from District 12 (presumably West Virginia), and their efforts to emerge from the games alive.

On its face the book reveals the oppressive cruelty that is big government. Indeed, while the global political class and their enablers in the media to this day try to explain away droughts and the resulting famines from an “Act of God” point of view, the simple truth is that economically free countries don’t suffer them.

Though food is surely the most essential, life-enhancing good on the planet, it’s plentiful in the most barren of climates where it’s not grown or farmed owing to the free-trade truth that we trade products for products; all manner of non-perishable items exchanged for food with great regularity. Simply put, visitors to Arizona don’t witness distended bellies among the citizenry due to a lack of farmers, instead Arizona is prosperous and its citizens well fed for the latter pursuing all manner of work the product of which enables them to freely exchange the fruits of their labor for other goods, including groceries.

Those who were around in the ‘80s doubtless remember the droughts that allegedly created a famine in Ethiopia, but the greater truth is that Ethiopian citizens at one time exported food so plentiful was it; the famine that properly tugged at our heartstrings a function of a brutal dictatorship that socialized agriculture. It was said after Great Britain left India that famines in the former Jewel in the Crown became a thing of the past, but the truer reality is that “famines” were redefined to whitewash the socialist basket case that India became once independent. “Inflation” is presently low in the United States, but that’s only true insofar as the commodities most sensitive to monetary error have been removed from the calculation. Droughts and famines are an inevitable effect of overbearing, interventionist and greedy governments.

As for war, though history says most have economic underpinnings, it is governments and politicians that start wars. This tells us that the horrific country that is Panem is the result of initial government error of the warring kind that led to something much worse.

Back to the malnourishment that pervades Panem, and underlies the story, Katniss muses at one point early on “What it must be like, I wonder, to live in a world where food appears at the press of a button? How would I spend the hours I now commit to combing the woods for sustenance if it were so easy to come by?” Well, in countries where individuals are allowed to keep the product of their work and trade it freely, food can essentially be had at the press of a button, or in modern parlance, with the click of a mouse.

Alternatively, as Bastiat long ago observed, when goods don’t cross borders, armies eventually do. A lack of free trade not only means we get to enjoy much less of the world’s plenty, but it also means we have no rooting interest in the ability of others to produce for us so that we can produce for them. Instead, suffering from a lack of what we want with no avenue to get what we want, we go to war in order to forcibly take that which would otherwise reach us through voluntary, mutually wealth-enhancing exchange.

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People want government to be able to provide everything they want but want government to demand as little as possible back. I’m talking about the choice American’s make about our government collecting less in taxes that are actually needed to solve problems; for example ….. an ocean oil spill. We have companies who were free to relocate overseas and the USA lost jobs. Then companies who will conduct business here more often than not pay people less than they can live on in this day and age. It’s a fact the Government must pick up the slack to keep many Americans from starving today. But If we want oil, we got it; but only take a sip, some is already salted and expensive. Want better solutions for oil; for all of our problems …then we have to pay for it. !!!

I felt the The hunger games better reflected the horrors of when the rich elite are given all of the rights and power, while the poor are used and abused. Large government isn’t the issue, rather e negligent one is.

John, thanks for excellent review. I agree that of course it can be a story about big government horrors. Do you think that it may have been inspired by Stephen King’s “The Long Walk”? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Long_Walk

These are all updates on old stories. King has praised THG knowing that it contains similarities to his own “The Running Man” and “The Long Walk.” King himself was inspired by other sources, including Robert Sheckley’s short story “The Prize of Peril” and the various adaptations of his work.

mary burleson A lack of free trade not only means we get to enjoy much less of the world’s plenty, but it also means we have no rooting interest in the ability of others to produce for us so that we can produce for them. Instead, suffering from a lack of what we want with no avenue to get what we want, we go to war in order to forcibly take that which would otherwise reach us through voluntary, mutually wealth-enhancing exchange.

I disagree with your reading of it, but I am not surprised at. For the sheer sake of mass appeal the film isn’t that specific about politics. If you believe that a government with good intentions is the surest path to tyranny, you can apply this world view to “The Hunger Games.” I’ve already seen Donald Sutherland’s president’s face cut and pasted onto the “HOPE” poster, as though Obama will lead us to the dystopian Capitol.

I haven’t read the books yet, I will to see if Collins is more specific or pointed about her politics. My guess is that she isn’t.

I find your naivete very moving. You know, I think it is really peculiar, you live in such a big country, I mean, in sense of area, you know, and still you are so narrow minded, like you spent whole your life in a tiny village, similar to this one from the Julie Andrews movie, The Sound of Music. Amazing achievement. May your, hmmm, wisdom… grow and grow…